There is yet another way of reasoning, which I utterly dislike; namely,
by putting imaginary cases of imaginary miracles, as Paley has done. "If
a dozen different individuals, all men of known sense and integrity,
should each independently of the other pledge their everlasting weal on
the truth, that they saw a man beheaded and quartered, and that on a
certain person's prayer or bidding, the quarters reunited, and then a
new head grew on and from out of the stump of the neck: and should the
man himself assure you of the same, shew you the junctures, and identify
himself to you by some indelible mark, with which you had been
previously acquainted,--could you withstand this evidence?" What could a
judicious man reply but--"When such an event takes place, I will tell
you; but what has this to do with the reasons for our belief in the
truth of the written records of the Old and New Testament? Why do you
fly off from the facts to a gigantic fiction,--when the possibility of
the 'If' with respect to a much less startling narration is the point in
dispute between us?"
Such and so peculiar, and to an honest mind so unmistakeable, is the
character of veracity and simplicity on the very countenance, as it
were, of the Gospel, that every remove of the inquirer's attention from
the facts themselves is a remove of his conversion. It is your business
to keep him from wandering, not to set him the example.
Never, surely, was there a more unequal writer than Skelton;--in the
discourses on the Trinity, the compeer of Bull and Waterland; and yet
the writer of these pages, 500-501! Natural magic! a stroke of art! for
example, converting the Nile into blood! And then his definition of a
miracle.
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